


Winning Shot

by blackredpanda



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Flash Fic, Gen, Mild Language, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackredpanda/pseuds/blackredpanda
Summary: The Fate and the Nightwings just need one more shot to send someone home.(Whumptober 2019prompt 1: Shaky Hands)





	Winning Shot

Almer crouched by the Fate's pyre, sweat beading on his face under his mask as his father raced towards the Nightwings' pyre with the Orb.

This was it.

This was it, after Father had watched the stars every night for years, waiting for the Nightwings to return – after they finally showed their faces again and he _gave_ them one of the few talismans he'd brought from the Commonwealth – after all the nights he fought as even the alpha-chiefs never had, only to return to the wagon trembling, his paw prints dark and wet on the floorboards... this was his chance to defeat those damned Nightwings and go free.

Father had said something about the stars fading away, too. Almer would have said it was a sign that the Scribes were abandoning the Rites and their exiles, but he already knew what Dalbert would say: they would follow the stars while they still shone, and seize what might be their last chance.

They were so close now. No more than a thin lick of blue or purple flame remained in either pyre. Just one more dousing with the Orb would extinguish one or the other. But then Dalbert gasped, struck by a well-timed cast from the girl in gray, and the Orb fell to her as he was banished into the air, where he could not hear Almer's sputtered blasphemies.

The girl – Tae, she had said once – she said the Scribes would watch over them, even if only one of them could prevail.

He had to prevail.

Almer charged into the field, casting his Aura into her path. She saw him, and stopped – but too late. Now the Orb was his. His hands shook as if with its weight, even though it leapt into his grasp as it always had. The Nightwings' cur bore down on his right as he ran for their pyre. There was no time to get closer. He clenched down onto the Orb's impossibly smooth surface, steeling himself; the Orb answered to one's will and not one's strength, but he had to be sure. One more shot was all it would take for Father to return home.

The Orb flew from his hands, driven forth with all his fury... and landed with a dull thump on the ground, inches short of the guttering flame, right where the Nightwings could scoop it up - but not before they banished Almer.

A moment later, Tae flung the Orb right past Dalbert and into the purple flame, where it left nothing but ashes on the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> This was very loosely based on [this gameplay video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSK0Kd_AEQU) and someone's comment about the emergent storytelling potential at 14 minutes in.
> 
> Criticism welcome.


End file.
